Her all-knowing mind, predicting the future before the present even considers happening.

Her well-timed presence, allowing me to experience emptiness and intervening just in time for that very emptiness to get too heavy for me to carry alone.

Her ever-moving mind, that mirrors and accentuates my own, constantly discovering something that would make everyone happier/better/more engaged. A place to go, a thing to see, a person to meet.

Her generous nature, letting me fly freely into a really big world without questioning my ability (even though sometimes I question it).

Her natural beauty, which I desperately wish she would let others see. Let the universe see. Which I wish she would see.

Her opaque sadness, never bleeding into the pores of my life, but existing…just like everyone else’s does. Vital, alive, and necessary.

Her ferocious bravery, going into each day with a very natural fear of loneliness and ending it sometimes with the same, sometimes not. If that’s not bravery, I don’t know what is. I don’t want to know what is.

Her quaint, abundant, and conservative humor, bouncing endlessly around each and every room she has ever been and ever will be in.

Her genuine heart, defining her every action.

She is the woman who taught me how to be a woman. Or even better: a human, a lover.

She gave me the ability to love so deeply the ability to cherish each moment,the ability (and desire) to think. for. myself.

She made it okay to embrace passion, to laugh and cry in the same day or at the same time,and to always make lots of breakfast bread.

She inspired me to move wildly across the country, to follow an impossible dream in hopes that it maybe/might/could/oneday work out, and to run openly into the unknown with just the right amount of fear.

When people look into her eyes that have planted themselves on my face in a slightly rounder way and tell me “you are just like your mother” … I should hug them. I should dance and sing with them. Or at least smile. The same smile that she told me was beautiful and perfect just the way it is (after braces helped me out with a few problem areas)

I should let them know: “that is what I’ve always wanted to be.”

I should say “Thank you”

Now that I’ve realized what it means to be like my Mom, I should cry more because I miss her so much everyday… even if haven’t spoken in weeks.

I should call more. Write more. Think more.

I should express more.

I will.

Each and every day I find myself living to create a legacy. One that she would be proud of.

The legacy is taking me a little longer than I had initially envisioned…just because I’m working some other, simpler things out first.

Things like: Why am I here? Is this what I really want? Who am I, really?

But even when I don’t know the answer to those daunting existential questions, I’m never too lost/ too far from me/ too confused.

Because if there’s one thing I know for sure, it’s that I am my mother’s daughter.